


I keep this moment by and by

by N8schatten



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: But before the rest of season 6, Grief/Mourning, This is just after Let's Kill Hitler, Trigger Warning: Child loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:01:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28157961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N8schatten/pseuds/N8schatten
Summary: She thought about Mels burning with golden light and turning into River and maybe this Doctor this man holding her and taking the blame was another Doctor.“Does it ever stop hurting?”She whispered and the soft, broken sigh he let out was already answered enough. But he spoke up and for a moment Amy wanted to laugh, because that idiot was Scottish.“No.” He whispered, like there was something in the room with them, they couldn’t wake.
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor & Amy Pond
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	I keep this moment by and by

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Cyn.  
> Any yes I'm aware that this probably isn't what what you meant when you said you wanted 12-Amy interaction.  
> I'm not sorry though!

Amy Pond had never thought she wanted children. Never even thought about it. Not even when she married Rory, she had really thought about it. After all she had time and space and her boys. What was there more?

And then there had been the pregnancy test. The thought of being pregnant. Only she wasn’t and she was and she was not. 

In the end she was. 

Melody Pond. A superhero. A child of the Tardis and a child of Amy and Rory. Her's and hers alone. Amy had known her baby girl for a few hours. A few precious hours with this little helpless bundle in her arms. 

That little girl that was cooing in her sleep. That made faces in her sleep and that held onto Amy’s finger with such strength Amy knew she got it from her father. After all she was the daughter of Rory Williams. The man, who waited and fought a thousand years for his fiancé to return. The man that protected them. The man that would come and rescue them.

Melody had Rory's blond hair too. The same soft blond hair that Amy had liked so much growing up. Her daughter, looking so much like Rory. 

Amy had fallen in love with Melody at that moment. Or more accurate she had fallen in love more deeply, with her daughter, because she looked like her father. The one man that was willing to wait for Amy. The one man that had chosen her over everything and everyone.

Her girl is so much like her favorite man in the world. 

Still Melody had her temper. Amy knew it with the way her little girl had turned red the moment someone else had tried to touch her. She would twist and scream and kick her little legs. 

Rory’s looks and smile and her temper. Amy hoped Melody would get Rory’s patience too, because god bless the poor teachers if Melody got more than her temper from Amy.

Amy had seen it, the happy life they would live. Rory and her with their daughter in Leathsworth. In the house with the blue door. With the Police box in the garden. Amy wondered if she could get River to be a good mother.

It never went like that. Instead her daughter was gone. Taken and put somewhere far out of her reach. Instead of River as a godmother, she was Melody. Her baby was all grown up, a woman. And the worst of all in prison. Amy didn’t want to know why, but she feared she already knew. 

And then even worse her best friend, Mels, Melody, the one person next to Rory Amy loved so much, she was her daughter too. She was River. The girl Amy had basically raised, because her foster mum was the worst person in the world, was her daughter. 

Her baby, she had died in front of Amy’s eyes and then had been tortured and nearly killed again. 

Amy had lived through all that. She had been there to feel her baby resolve in white blob. She had been there to see her best friend get short by Hitler. She had seen how her daughter had given up her lives for the man she had been trained to kill. The man who was the reason why River wasn’t Melody.

Sometimes in the dark of the night, Amy laid awake and stared at the ceiling. She would lay there listening to Rory’s soft breathing and cry. Amy had sworn herself she would only do it with Rory next to her, because River had her temper and Amy had seen River at her worse. Amy understood that she would be just as bad, maybe even worse. 

So at nights when Rory was there Amy laid awake and cried. Hot angry tears of hate and in those moments she resented the Doctor, he was the reason why her Melody was taken. Why her daughter was gone. Why Amy had a vivid memory of the small warm body of her daughter melting into goo. 

She would hate the Doctor and cry for her daughter. He would show up the next morning. Like he knew what Amy was thinking and wanted to face the hate. Sometimes Amy wondered if he did. If he wanted to see the hate, because he thought he deserved it. 

But without fail, the moment Amy saw her raggedy man, more disheveled that ever. With a loose and crooked Bowtie with rings under his eyes as dark as black holes, because he hadn’t slept in months. In those moments her hate disappeared, because all Amy saw was a man, who was tearing the universe apart to find her daughter. 

She could hate the phantom he was in the dark of the night, but not the man himself. 

Still until this day Amy never really realized what she had lost. 

She stood in the attic of her childhood home between boxes and boxes of old stuff her parents had placed here. In front of her was an open box, with much more dust on it, than most boxes. 

And in her hands a onesie.

Her first onesie. 

_ I keep it for your first child _ .

The voice of her mother rang in Amy's ears and her fingers tightened in the soft wool. She never got the chance. She never got the chance to see her baby in this onesie. Never got the chance for pictures sitting next to each other in a picture book. Of two little girls in the same onesie.

She never would have pictures of her daughter at the age of one, her mouth dark with chocolate cake and a crown on her head. She never would know her daughters first words, her first steps. She never would hear Melody’s first laugh or what she feared. 

Amy took a single gasping breath and felt her knee’s give in.

She would never see her daughter one a bike for the first time. She couldn’t tell her stories about the adventures they had. The adventures her daughter would have with the doctor. They would never get the chance for anything. Because Melody was gone, gone forever and in her place was a woman that was a mystery for Amy. A woman with a teasing smile and innuendos and hair so big it had to hide the secrets of the universe. 

Melody was gone and in her stead was a woman Amy had liked as a friend. Someone she didn’t know anything about. Someone, who was a stranger when she should be the one person Amy knew best.

Her fingers were still tangled in the wool of the onesie. It was soft even though it was over twenty years old. The bright red colour made Amy smile and there was a little sunflower knitted into it. 

When the tears fell down her cheeks Amy felt hollow. Something inside her had broken. Something was broken inside of her. It had been broken since the moment Kovarian had taken her baby and Amy wasn’t sure if she could repair it. Or if it could heal. 

In the box were other clothes. Small dresses and trousers. shoes and hats. Amy sobbed and then like something inside of her was breaking open. Tearing her even more apart, a scream tore it’s way up her throat. And Amy screamed. She held the onesie against her mouth and screamed and screamed until her voice broke.

She screamed for the lost moments and the little girl in the space suit, that looked at her so frightened. Amy screamed for the baby that never knew its parents and she screamed for Mels, because Mrs Zucker had been awful. 

Amy screamed for Rory and herself and the happinesses they had been robbed off.

Arms circled her and then there were arms wrapping around her. Holding her tight and secure. 

Amy knew it was the Doctor the moment he leaned his head on her shoulder. There was something about him. His body heat was slightly higher than usual. The way he smells ancient and new at the same time. Kind of timeless. 

Amy screamed and raged in his arms and without fail he held her save. Held her together. Taking all the blame she shot at him. Taking the words, Amy knew she wouldn’t be able to say if she saw him. Amy had a feeling he knew that too.

And she had a feeling that her raggedy man wasn't exactly her raggedy man any longer. His hands holding her arms, different than the hands she was used to. His breathing sounded different and there was just something about him, that made Amy know that something had happened.

She thought about Mels burning with golden light and turning into River and maybe this Doctor this man holding her and taking the blame was another Doctor.

“Does it ever stop hurting?” 

She whispered and the soft, broken sigh he let out was already answered enough. But he spoke up and for a moment Amy wanted to laugh, because that idiot was Scottish. 

“No.” He whispered, like there was something in the room with them, they couldn’t wake.

“No it never stops. You will always think about something and then look up, to share it with them. And they aren’t there. And sometimes you can hear them. Their laughter and the way they scream when you tickle them. You will think you see their hair in a crowd. Or a moment looks exactly like something you remember. A moment you shared with them. It’s another kind of pain. A pain that never stops a pain that will always be there.”

He stopped and loosened his grip and Amy turned to her raggedy man. He was old. Wild silver curls, attack eyebrows and wrinkles. But at the same time he was her raggedy man. No matter the face. 

“You’re Scottish.” She whispered and he gained at her. “After the first face this face saw.” He muttered, thickening his accent until his voice was rumbling. Amy laughed. A weak and watery sound that made her jump a bit, but the Doctor smiled back. His eyes twinkled, his eyebrows suddenly didn’t look so thick any longer. 

He leaned his forehead against hers and Amy felt the pain ease a bit. “Do you trust me?” He whispered and Amy hesitated for a moment. “I’m not leaving.” She whispered and he shook his head ever so gently. 

“No need for that, just relax, Pond, let me show you why River is your daughter.” And before she could protest she saw moments and moments.

River fierce and young, her hair wilder, then Amy had seen ever before, standing between a group of kids and men with guns and futuristic weapons. “Get the hell away from them.” She growled and in that moment she looked like Rory. Rory at fifteen standing between Mels and her fist mum. Rory, twenty years old, in the hospital almost starting a fight with an abusive parent. 

_ She has Rory’s passion.  _ The Doctor's voice spoke in her head and suddenly he stood next to her and held out a hand. “Come along Pond and let me show you, who River Song is.” 

She took his hand without hesitation. 

They stood in a library. Half of it rows and rows of blue glowing glass shards. Half of its ancient books. River sat on the head of a table surrounded by people, explaining some things. Her was gesturing wildly, her eyes gleaming. Amy blinked. She did that sometimes.

“She always gets like that, when she talks about something she loves.” He whispered, his voice a bit broken. 

The scene changed and they stood at the mouth of an alley. Before them was a town square. It was filled with music and flower garlands. The people were dancing in the middle of the square. Between them, in the middle was River in a beautiful white dress was River turning and twisting with Bowtie to the music that Amy realized was something like the ancient Scottish songs her father loved so much. 

“Look over there.” The Doctor whispered and pointed to the side of the square. Amy found herself, with Rory and a red headed man laughing and joking. “One of your first ancestors, River found the records about this wedding and you couldn’t stop her after that. She basically kidnapped TARDIS with me in it, stole you away and showed up here.” 

Amy looked back at her daughter. Laughing in her white dress with flowers in her hair, the Doctor in a kilt. Twirling and twirling, her eyes gleaming. Amy smiled.

“They may not be her first steps, but you gave her away. You and Rory. One on each side.” Somehow this felt like something inside her loosened. Some weight slowly falling from her chest.

And then the scene shifted, just as River left the circle of dancers and grabbed for Rory’s and Amy’s hands.

“Dance with me.” 

The words rung in Amy’s head.

They visited River teaching and Amy forgot for a moment that she wasn’t a student. River was brilliant. Captivating and fierce. Her love for her subject rings in every word. 

River sitting with alien children in a dark room. Her gun ready, while she told them the stories about the last centurion and the girl who waited. Amy watched how the children sat taller to her own story. 

“Rory Williams is the bravest man I know. He never stepped down, no matter how impossible the task before him was. And his wife Amy Pond she never stopped hopping, never stopped believing. And I take that with me. In here,” River touched her heart. “In here.” She touched her head. “And in every fiber of my being. They helped me in the darkest moments of my life and they always will be there for me.” River smiled at the children.

“Do you know them?” A little child asked and River nodded. “They are my parents and I’m so grateful knowing them."

Moment after moment flew by. Another wedding. Another laugh. Achievements River shared with them. Her graduation. Her becoming a Professor. Her first dig. 

Sleepovers at Amy’s home. River and Rory dancing in the kitchen, singing off key to a song Amy couldn’t stand. The Doctor and River beating Amy and Rory at charade. Little things. No grand adventures, just little things. The bright little moments.

River taking part at an archery tournament and coming first. Her shy little smile. The way she looked for them and how her smile grew when she found them. Holding herself prouder and holding her medal higher. 

River standing before a neighbor that was accusing Amy of cheating on Rory, and almost pouncing at the woman.

“I’M THEIR DAUGHTER YOU HAG!” 

The word's made Amy gasp and the Doctor curled his arms around her.

He showed her the moments, when River wasn’t strong any longer, when she broke down and asked for her dad or her mum.

Moment’s when she called and asked if she could come home. Little moment’s of trust and love and pain.

River sitting next to Amy's dad, both of them gesturing and talking loudly. With her mum next to her dad. Her head in her hands. Rory’s dad on the other side of the table laughing. 

Amy didn’t hear what they said, but she saw her mum’s head snapping up. “NO!” She growled, but it was too late. 

Her dad was standing, dancing on the spot and then he turned to her mum, triumph in his eyes. “You hear that?” He shouted and pointing his finger at her mum. Around him all of them were laughing. “That’s MY granddaughter!” Her dad shouted and Amy's knees buckled again.

The memories stopped and they were back in the attic. Her head rested against the Doctors. His old face was soft and there was a weak smile on his lips. 

“He adored her. All of them did.” The doctor chuckled. Your father never lets you mum forget that argument. She hated me a bit for it.” 

Amy couldn’t wait for the moment to really happen. 

“It will hurt Amy.” He whispered and popped her bubble. In the same moment he pulled her closer, hiding his face in her hair. “It will always hurt, because there are moments that you yearn for. Moments that you should recall, but never will, because they didn’t happen. 

But Amy, trust me on this. You will always have other memories. Moments so bright and happy, they outweigh the bad moments. By a lot. You will always remember her laughter. You will remember the precious moments with Mels, when she trusted you so much. You will have light. So much light, I’ll take care of that. I promise. There are so many memories to come.” 

Amy closed her eyes and let the tears fall. She curled her arms around him and pulled him against her. The tiny onesie between them. 

“And one day.” He whispered, so quiet, that she almost didn’t hear it. “When all is lived, there will be someone wearing the onesie.” 

Amy let out a single breath and smiled. 

Right there in the attic, in the arms of a man that had lived through it all. Who had taken all the blame and the pain and did his best to turn it into happiness, Amy started to heal.

So much to live through. So much laughter and happiness. 

“I can’t wait to live it.” 

She whispered. 

**Author's Note:**

> If you find mistakes of any kind, tell me! English isn't my first language and I want to get better.  
> If you want to talk: [My Tumblr is open](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/riversmithmelody)


End file.
